"WHAT'S YOUR DEAL?"

So my 10-year-old self e-mailed me: "What's your deal? How come you don't go out in the woods and dig foxholes no more?"

Not sure how—or, in truth, why—to respond, I eventually replied: "Good to hear from you. Thanks for the 46-year lapse in communications. In answer to your query, it is illegal to 'go out in the woods and dig foxholes,' even though some people ignore this. Their photographs can be found in your local Post Office."

The speedy reply: "Huh? Well how come you don't go out at night no more and climb on people's roofs and junk?"

Struck a nerve, there: "Who says I don't?"

Could have been more subtle with that, but what the hey, right? Two weeks later I heard back: "OH HA-HA-HA-HA-HA stupid head!"

No wonder this kid grew up to be me.

In honor of me—him I mean him—I've assembled 10-Year-Old Me's Greatest Hits. Basically, a crazy-quilt of quips, one-liners, and neo-existentialist philosophy shared with friends and mean Mr. Silvewski who probably had a pile of kids in his basement next to the train set.

1. We should climb this tree and spit on Brian Britz.
2. We should climb up on your garage roof and pee on Brian Britz.
3. We should climb up on the Ridd's barn and chuck apples at Brian Britz.
4. AHHH! RUN! Britz and his fat-ass brother are after us!
5. When you drop a brick on a toad it really stops moving.
6. Let's empty all the firecrackers and build a rocket engine.
7. I tried breathing under water and it hurt. Aquaman's fake!
8. If we build a tree-house, we'll be able to see Canada and stuff.
9. Flush your sister's shoe down the toilet and watch her face turn colors.
10. Pro'ly I shouldn't have let Mr. Silvewski's dog eat all that chili.
11. We should build a tree-house, carry Silvewski's dog up there, feed him more chili, and aim his pooper at Brian Britz.
12. We should blow up Silvewski and blame it on Brian Britz.
13. Yesterday I burped and junk came up and tasted like the time I ate a leaky battery.
14. I bet those guys on the Moon can see Canada.
15. I'm gonna hook up my dad's generator to my bike, drink a bottle of Coke with peanuts in it, and see if I go into the future.

You know, given a viable budget and more prudent management oversight, #15 might have gotten off the ground instead of ending in catastrophic failure and projectile vomiting.

Oh well, it was good to hear from me. As for the rest of you, in the well-intentioned but ill-applied English of Mr. Silvewski: "Ya damn kidz get outta my yaaard!"

ACTIVE PROCRASTINATION: 10 EASY STEPS

As a prolific ghostwriter—and in-general writer—I'll do just about anything to avoid the terrible Blank...White...Page. At this moment, typing these words, I am in fact not writing. How is this possible? Could I, respected practitioner of transparent falsity, conceivably be fibbing?

Basically, a writer is a guy sitting alone in a room making stuff up. I'm doing exactly that, right now—see? There. It's done. Let the philosopher's stone wake to foggy gloom, and find itself Day-Glowed with graffiti based on my Easy 10-Step Program. Did it again.

As in many endeavors, the problem with active procrastination lies in simply getting started. How to begin. Stick to familiar patterns that—once you get going—seem to work. Never over-complicate such practical matters. In short: eschew obfuscation. I'll share an example:

Let's say I am commissioned to write a 40,000-word novel (some would call a piece of this length a novella, and I don't refute that), and sign a contract promising Final Deliverable in five weeks. Man! Did I really agree to that? Hey, they don't call me prolific for nothin', Hoss. Immediately I head over to Amazon, and start reading samples for 2, or 3, maybe 27 new novels. Wait—there's a really cool article over at Fortean Times.com about some Iowa guy who hears voices coming from a Briggs & Stratton lawn-mower engine with 8.75 Gross Torque. But, really, I better get to work writing this novel.

Coffee sounds good, and possibly even required, 'cause all that web-surfing wears on a soul. After repeated attempts to stand, walk into the kitchen, and brew a pot of West Borlo Gin-Roasted Triple-Peel Barn-Builder, I give up. A short-cut enters the prolific mind itself: in the microwave, heat to boiling one cup of water, and add two heaping tablespoons (tblspns?) of instant coffee. Stir. Return to sitting position, and enjoy. This brief excursion into efficiency, worthy of that future hero himself, John Connor, will provide caffeine sufficient to give me the power to brew a pot of slow-drip. There. I did something.

Really ought to start work on this novel or I'm gonna regret it.

Returning from finally brewing "real" coffee, I spy a cock-eyed canary bookmark poking from a moldering paperback copy of Fred Spackleman's 1963 thriller, Call Me Boris and I'll Clean Your Basement. Just under 7 hours later, I've managed not only to drink my coffee, but finish the Spackleman opus, and plow through the first 191 pages of a seed catalog.

Novel. Commission. 40,000 words. Five weeks.

Those cargo pants upstairs, and that Shempish T-shirt from 2002 really could stand a washing.

Around 4AM, I am ready to begin my writing day, thinking only prolific thoughts. Those 10 Easy Steps will just have to wait.

HOW TO ANGER YOURSELF IN UNDER ONE MINUTE: A GUIDE

So, it looks like this Internet thing is really catching on—amazing! Zing-zow-dippity-bang!

I'd like to take a few minutes of your obviously very valuable time, and annihilate them. How can this be accomplished? The answer is simple, fat-free, artisanal, and even more annoying than you might imagine: UGD. Sorry...I meant to write User's Guide Digest, but a Yahoo! trend-drone smashed through a window and forced me to watch a hyper-blip video of some ironic bearded hipster trying on moccasins.

What was I saying? Oh yeah—of course. User's Guide Digest: for those busy, over-caffeinated days when you just wanna say, "Ya know, I'd really like to get this friggin' Personal Coffee Bean-Roaster assembled before the world ends again like it did in 2012." Ah, who hasn't been there?

There are, however, problems.

The User's Guide is written in a language apparently combining elements of poorly dubbed Japanese science-fiction films from 1964, scripts from industrial training films, the William S. Burroughs "cut-up" technique, and possibly trigger-switching diagrams culled from  Russian Cold War archives—but I wouldn't know anything about that.

You down another quintuple espresso and crack open your guide, its green-friendly soy ink staining your shaky fingers. "What the Sam Scratch is this shit?" you exclaim in perfect vacuum, noticing the helpful schematic shares aspects of early Bauhaus and a prison tattoo. The easy part is over, and you make the bad call of questioning the purchase of a home coffee bean-roaster that requires assembly.

Just hold on Mister, or Missy, or insulting label of your choice: Caffeine is King. You grind your teeth, and begin reading:

4077 HOME PERSONAL COFFEE BEAN-ROASTER WELCOME FRIENDLY!

Hello and we prefer happy you find 4077 Home Personal Coffee Bean-Roaster welcome friendly appliance indoors, only. If not recommended, do not inhale fumes from liquids may have fire hazard unhappy location. The urge you to always follow along ignoring all safety yourself, and no hope injuring of others, inside.

1. Open closed product container, not sharp cutting tool injure self product 4077.
2. Remove 4077 of contents not inhale of plastic packaging to suffocate, or others. Discard others of plastic to injure not animals and children in trash can.
3. Place 4077 product on all flat surfaces, indoors. Give away choking hazard to pets and avoid.

Following these guidelines simple assembly take happy indoors, only, the 1 hour to avoid unplugging of all electrocution.

Tears are close, I know, but you slog on regardless.

You will not be defeated by inferior translation on a Friday, dammit, and that Robinson 401-k portfolio due at work can wait.

Sorry to leave you hanging. I accidentally washed dishes, hung a little drywall, wrote a new chapter for my forthcoming  Cleveland Killjoy Oven Mitt Mangler series, and prepared a batch of habanero chile oil to spill later. But I'm sure you've done the same.

Oh wait—I don't have time to finish this. My TrendSetter App is beeping like a bastard—it's time for another episode of Kurt Steel's Paranormal Road Trips Rockin' Microbrewery Hour.